Armenia’s 10 richest people

It is not a good thing to count other people’s money. But people want to know who the richest people of their country are.

Many people in Armenia want to know this too. However, there is no research in Armenia similar to the list of Forbes as they calculate the wealth of the richest people with the stocks and shares they have in large companies and the market value.

In Armenia it is not possible because the stock exchange market is not developed and rich people register their properties in names of others.

Even the declaration of properties by high rank officials is not reliable. The rich do not show their income and want to demonstrate that they survive with salary only.

Even though there is lack of official information, people in Armenia have some understanding about the richest people in the country and what properties they have.

The list below is based on opinions of people and may not necessarily reflect the real picture.

In order to make this list we have surveyed 70 experts, businessmen and officials. Even though we promised that their names would be confidential, most of them refused to answer. Some of them said they did not have information, others said they did not have time.

The list above is made based on the information provided by 57 people, who are very well informed about the political and economic life of the country.

The respondents were not offered any names and were asked to write the names of ten richest people of Armenia. Meantime, they were asked to give points 1-10 according to the sequence from the top down to the last number.

52 people out of 57 respondents said the richest person of Armenia is Robert Kocharyan, other five people said Serzh Sargsyan.

In 2006 the first and last publication of Forbes in Armenia offered that Robert Kocharyan was the richest person in Armenia with over one billion dollars wealth (Davit Harutyunyan, Yervand Zakharyan, Serzh Sargsyan, Armen Avetisyan and Andranik Manoukyan were included in the list too).

In 2008 Russian media published information evaluating Kocharyan’s wealth at 4 billion. Maybe this is the reason why people think that Kocharyan is the richest person of Armenia.

Serzh Sargsyan is in the second place in the list. However, according to the report Sargsyan submitted to the Central Electoral Commission, his assets are worth of 108, 4 million drams ($267k).

If we take into account the official reports, Serzh Sargsyan will not be included in the list of 20 richest people because in their official reports at least 27 MPs have declared more assets than the president.

Gagik Tsarukyan is in the third place in the list. According to his official report, he is the richest parliamentarian and his wealth was estimated at $60 million in 2012.

Besides the people included in the list, the respondents also gave the names of businessman Hrant Vardanyan, Mikhail Baghdasarov, MP Mher Sedrakyan, Vardan Ayvazyan, minister of transport and communication Gagik Beglaryan, Ambassador of Armenia to Ukraine Andranik Manoukyan, businessman Barsegh Beglaryan and head of the armed forces general headquarter Youri Khachatourov. Some of the people that refused to answer our questions said that they were not the right people to ask and recommended us to go and ask official institutions about it.

We know the place of the official institution where we could ask for official information, however the purpose of this research is revealing whether the public perception is the same as the information announced officially. In other words, what we wanted to find out is whether the society believes in the words of officials and official information. In fact ordinary people in Armenia do not really know the real wealth of those people.

By Babken Tunyan